Arts

I watched Mom lock the door after the policeman left and ducked out of sight so she wouldn’t see me. I was supposed to be upstairs in bed, but when she went to the bathroom to take her shower, I came down to the kitchen to get a drink of grape Kool-Aid, my favorite. I was on my way back upstairs when he knocked on the door. I froze in the middle of the steps, thinking “Oh crap, I’m gonna get it.”

“Sara! Get the door please.” Mom yelled at me, thinking I was still in my bedroom. Before I could turn around to go back down the stairs to open the door, he knocked again.

“Sara! Open the door, I’m in the bathroom girl!” Mom yelled louder.

Is Jake Johnson the most likable actor in Hollywood? It’s hard to argue against it. His memorable roles include Nick Miller in “New Girl” and the voice of Peter B. Parker in “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” Not only is he a talented actor, but he also showcases his skills as a writer and director in Hulu’s latest film, “Self Reliance,” in which he wears all three hats.

Jake Johnson is Tommy, a middle-aged man struggling with his career and coping with a recent breakup (he’s clearly not over) and lives with his mom. His life takes a bizarre turn when he’s recruited by Andy Samberg, playing himself, for a dark web game. The objective: survive 30 days and win a million dollars. However, there is a catch: hunters will actively try to kill him during that time. The only loophole is that he cannot be harmed as long as he is with someone.

Lies Exposed 

Detective Richardson sat in his unmarked black police car, watching Sheila and Sara walking towards their house. Sheila was about three feet in front of Sara, walking fast, hips swinging from side to side. Sara seemed to be almost running to keep up with her mother, looking back over her shoulder every few steps as if someone were following them to their home. When they got to their front stoop, Shelia stopped abruptly, and Sara bumped into her backside because she was looking backwards.

“Girl! Look where you going!” Sheila shouted at Sara as she continued up the steps, looked in the mailbox, took out some mail, glanced through it then unlocked her front door and entered with Sara behind. The door closed with a solid shut. Richardson made a note in his notebook, snapped it shut and put his pencil in his upper coat pocket. He had been sitting here, about three houses down from Sheila’s for about forty-five minutes. As he went over his notes while waiting, he refreshed his memory.

The Discovery

This was not going to be a good day. The sky was cloudy, and the ground was still wet from the rain that poured down over Columbus all last night. I was walking hard and fast in my black army boots towards Jimmy’s cab company. I was not supposed to be going over there, and if Sheila knew I was going there, or even knew where there was, I would get an ass whipping that would cause me to not be able to sit down for a week. Sheila didn’t care how old her girls were or how big they were, if an ass whipping was called for, an ass whipping you got! I often wondered if this would still apply when we were grown. I didn’t dwell on it long though because I knew deep down that, yes, Sheila would still whup our butts, grown or not.

Love and Happiness 

Sheila ordered a gin and juice from David, the bartender, and laid a dollar on the counter. She glanced at her watch and saw she had about two hours before her girls would get out of school. David made her drink, set a napkin on the counter in front of her and sat the drink down.

“How you been doing, Sister?”

“I’m cool, Dave. How you?”

“Doing all right, hanging in there, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Every Secret Isn’t a Secret 

Richardson hadn’t interviewed one person who knew who Smooth really was in life. To the men he was just a “cool brother man” and to the women he showed Smooth’s picture too, he was “That’s that fine Smooth baby.” They all said they didn’t know he was the judge’s son until they read it in the Call & Post newspaper and saw his picture and his face on the local news stations.

The last lead Richardson had was from the bartender at the Colony Club on Long Street. She said that she had seen Smooth on the day of his death and that Smooth called a cab about one-thirty pm to pick him up at two pm. She knew this because he asked her to use the bar's phone to call it for him, so he didn’t have to pay a dime in the phone booth. She didn’t know where the cab was taking Smooth because he said he would tell them when they picked him up. She also remembered that Smooth had eaten lunch with a sister named Sheila that day around noon but that she was gone before the cab picked Smooth up at the bar. She said they often had lunch together there, at least once a week. 

Young Men Die 

Detective Richardson stood in the front lobby of We Get You There cab company. The secretary, Mrs. Hanson, had offered him a chair, however, he preferred to stand rather than sit on the dirty seats. There was a large blackboard against the right wall with names of six cab drivers and their cab numbers. It appeared that only four of the drivers had checked in today. On the large brown oak desk was a picture of Mrs. Hanson and three children, two boys and a girl. Nice looking kids. Richardson flipped through his notebook, underlining a few notes with his pencil. His investigation of Booker T. had brought him to this place.

Booker T. was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Went to private schools, honor roll, basketball star, and ladies’ man. Graduated top ten of his high school class. Against his mother’s wishes, he joined the Army and ended up in Vietnam. Found out quickly that he was just another “darkie” in the Army to both the white and Black officers. Nobody cared about his mother being a prominent judge in hick town Columbus, Ohio. 

Suspicion 

Sara was on her way to Annie’s house. She was listening to DJ Kurt Bishop on her pink transistor radio, holding it to her ear to hear it better as the cars and buses roared past her on Long Street. Sara hated that it was pink, she asked for a blue one, but knew better than to say something negative about it to Shelia. Better to be pink then to have it taken back for being an “ungrateful brat.”

Sara and Annie had made plans to walk to Franklin Park and hang out. It was Saturday and the day was sunny and bright, so it would be packed with people. Annie liked to sit and people watch, as she called it. They would point out a person and then make up stories about who they were and what their lives were like. Annie always made up nice stories. The people were always successful, loved by many and beautiful. Sara’s stories were, what she felt, more realistic. The people had problems, they suffered great tragedies and harm and sometimes, to make it really interesting, they knocked people off, you know, murder.

Missed Opportunities 

Jimmy sat at his desk in his office. The desk was cluttered with paper, logbooks, receipt books, pens and pencils, so much so that you couldn’t see the desktop. On the walls were posters of Jim Brown, the Cleveland Browns fullback football player, The Harlem Globetrotters world famous basketball team, Pam Grier, a popular Black B-Movie actress, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X. The room had a strong male musty smell, combined with pepperoni pizza and stale cigarettes. Jimmy hung up the telephone, shook his head and let out a loud sigh.

“Sissy!” he yelled.

His office door was flung open and in rushed Sissy with a cup of coffee in her right hand. Sissy Hanson had worked for Jimmy for over ten years. When she first started, she was returning to the workforce due to her husband of twenty-five years leaving her for a younger woman. Everyone tried to tell her that the other woman really wasn’t a “younger woman” because she was only three years younger than Sissy, who was forty-four at the time, but, in Sissy’s closed mind, she was younger than she was so therefore she was a younger woman. Case closed.

End of a Dream 

Shelia watched her girls as they ate their breakfast before school. She was leaning against the kitchen sink, smoking a cigarette. Sara was dressed in her usual pair of blue jeans with bell bottoms and a blouse that was two sizes too big for her, still trying to hide her breasts from the world. Shelia gave up years ago with trying to get her to dress more ‘ladylike’ and was just thankful that she had Jean to pamper with cute dresses and blouses, show her how to wear her make-up properly and just talk girl talk because Sara was always asking questions that Shelia really didn’t have the answers too or cared to answer, like,

 "How come they always following us in the store downtown?" with "they" being the White store clerks, or

 "When we gonna move out of this project? Who's that man you talking to? Why don’t you like Mr. Jimmy?’

 Shelia knew the answers to all of the questions but didn’t want to get into the facts of life or hurt Sara’s feelings since she seemed to have a soft spot for the bowl of jelly. 

“Anything going on after school today?” Shelia asked.